Field of the Invention
Embodiments presented in this disclosure generally relate to computer games and, more particularly, to repositioning avatars in a virtual world to avoid an appearance of offensive content.
Description of the Related Art
A virtual world is a simulated environment in which users may interact with virtual objects and locations of the virtual world. Each user may control a respective avatar through which the user may interact with other users' avatars in the virtual world. An avatar generally provides a graphical representation of an individual within the virtual world environment. Avatars are usually presented to other users as two or three-dimensional graphical representations that resembles a human individual. Frequently, virtual worlds allow multiple users to enter the virtual environment and interact with one another. Virtual worlds are said to provide an immersive environment, as they typically appear similar to the real world and objects tend to follow rules related to gravity, topography, locomotion, physics and kinematics. Of course, virtual worlds can suspend or alter these rules as well as provide other imaginative or fanciful environments. Users typically communicate with one another through their avatars using text messages sent between avatars, real-time voice communication, gestures displayed by avatars, symbols visible in the virtual world, and the like.
Some virtual worlds are described as being persistent. A persistent world provides an immersive environment (e.g., a fantasy setting used as a setting for a role-playing game, or a virtual world complete with land, buildings, towns, and economies) that is generally always available and where events continue to occur regardless of the presence of a given avatar. Thus, unlike more conventional online games or multi-user environments, the virtual world continues to exist and plots and events continue to unfold as users enter (and exit) the virtual world. Virtual environments are presented as images on a display screen and some virtual environment may allow users to record events that occur within the virtual environment.
Many virtual worlds feature some form of content filtering for use in detecting and removing offensive content. For example, a virtual world may include a chat filter configured to detect offensive words in communications within the virtual world and to remove them and/or mask the words. In certain virtual worlds, users are given the ability to ignore or block interactions with particular other users in the virtual world. For example, a first user of the virtual world may choose to block interactions with a second user (e.g., because to offensive comments previously made by the second user). Upon blocking interactions with a particular user in the virtual world, the first user may no longer see communications from the second user and in some cases may no longer see the avatar associated with the second user within the virtual world.